Character Creation: GURPS 3rd Ed

"GURPS" is a fun word. Sounds like a noise a bullfrog would make.

The Game: GURPS 3rd. Edition, using the Creatures of the Night book
The Publisher: Steve Jackson Games.
Degree of Familiarity: Not a hell of a lot. I've played GURPS on occasion, usually with Karafa, but never run it and never made my own character.
Books Required: Just the GURPS book, but like I said, I'm using a sourcebook as flavor for the stew.

 

OK, GURPS, as probably everyone still reading these posts (anybody?) knows, is Generic Universal Roleplaying System. It's just...a system, and TMK was the first one using this setup; publishing the system as its own book and then a bunch of sourcebooks for any damn thing you want. Seriously, d20 talks a good game, but GURPS, at last count, has approximately eleventy-twice billionty sourcebooks available.

Well, I only own three. Creatures of the Night is one I've owned for a long time, I sing its praises frequently because it's a goddamn awesome buy if you run any kind of horror. I've never run GURPS, but of the 67 (!) creatures in this book (hang on) at least 30 and probably more have found their way into the games I've run.

But that's the thing: I'm using this book primarily as inspiration, because the creatures in it aren't really playable. Well, a few of them might be. But let's do this: Each creature has several adventure seeds. So I'll randomly pick a creature, pick one of those seeds, and then make a character appropriate to that scenario.

Hang on, gonna need some entropy.

My result creature is the Fabricant. These are living creatures who are slowly turning into robots. I can't remember if I've used these guys or not; seems like I might have in an old game of Mage: The Ascension (where they'd have fit in nicely), but I don't know anymore. In any event, GURPS measures Tech Level; we're at approximately Tech Level 7 right now (amusingly, the years listed for TL8 start at 2001, so where the hell are the fusion powered spacecraft, huh?). Fabricants always turn into beings two TL above their surroundings, so one made in the modern day would be TL 9, and have access to awesome stuff accordingly.

Oh, further coolness: Fabricants grow a lair of flesh over themselves, which they can peel off at will and scare the crap out of people. If living beings eat this flesh, they change into fabricants, too. Indeed, that's how fabricants can repair themselves - feed their flesh to animals, then cannibalize the animals for parts.

Let's have a look at the adventure seeds. One of them ("Discarded Miracles") doesn't do much for me; it's about a fabricant hanging out in a junkyard full of weird science. It's OK, but eh. But then the other one, "Fermina", is kind of interesting. Fermina is a vampire/fabricant. She's TL9, so she has bionic limbs and retractable fangs, as well as whatever other TL9 stuff the GM might like. She likes to rip off her skin and go skiving around the city's rooftops "nude," but still acts like a vampire. But an interesting point: Can she still drink blood? I think if I were the GM, I might introduce some kind of reactor in her innards that converts the energy of living blood into an efficient fuel. Then, after we take this bitch down, we have to decide what to do about that engine. It'd be damned useful, and it's not like it's hard to get blood, right?

But I'm getting ahead of myself. Let's see. My character is a modern-day person who's going to wind up hunting down a robotic vampire. The temptation to take the same backstory I used for the Gremlin and apply it here is great, but I'll refrain. Instead, I think I'll play someone who knows vampires, but not robots.

Actually, if you'll pardon a really weird inspiration, did you happen to catch the movie Turbulence? Ray Liotta as a serial killer, some...blond woman as the star (Lauren Holly, now that I've looked). But what I remember about the movie, apart from being pretty unimpressed, was that in the opening scene where Liotta's character is captured, Hector Elizondo plays a cop who thinks he knows Liotta front and back, and is pretty arrogant about it (and is wrong on some key points). So my character will be a self-styled vampire expert, and in the game would get to see the vampire "tells"...and then get totally rocked when it turns out that she's a robot vampire.

Step One: Basic Attributes. I picture this person as being mostly mental, rather than physical. That means putting Intelligence high at a sacrifice to the other attributes. I'll put INT at 15; that eats 60 of my 100 points. I'll put STR at 10 (Average, costs nothing) and DEX at 9 ("costs" -10). I'll put Health at 10, Average, as well. Overall, I've spent 50.

My Speed score is (HT + DEX)/4, or 4.75.

Step Two: Physical Appearance. I can picture this guy. Black hair, balding, bad comb-back job, pasty skin, glasses, with a predilection for poofy shirts and other weird affectations of clothing. You've met him at cons, I'm sure. I think that's "Unattractive Appearance," so I get 5 points back.

Step Three: Wealth and Status. In the real world, having a lot of knowledge in some esoteric area of lore (like, say, vampires) doesn't pay unless you write novels that sell. It'd be an interesting twist to make this guy a novelist and give him money and status in that area. Actually, hell, that'd be fun to play. I'll take "Wealthy," which means I start with about $75K and work only 20 hours a week. I figure he actually works a lot more than that when he works, but his "work" is mostly research and when he writes, he goes on benders and burns out a book in a couple of months.

Now, Reputation. Enough people read my guy's books that he enjoys a +2 reaction bonus (10 points) with a fairly large group of people (folks who like lurid vampires novels), but he's not recognized all that often (sometimes). So that's 2 points it costs me.

I'm not changing his Status; while he's nominally a celebrity, he's also kind of a jerk, definitely arrogant, and doesn't really mix with other folks in his monetary class.

Step Four: Advantages. OK, let's see what's appropriate for my guy.

I think I'd like Eidetic Memory. I always wonder about this merit/advantage in RPGs, because it's so hard to simulate, but here, it gives you a double return on points into mental skills, and since I'm sure I'll be taking some of those, this seems like a good investment. That's 30 points.

Honestly, though, beyond that I don't see much else that grabs me. So I'll move on.

Step Five: Disadvantages. I'm currently at 97 points spent, so I'll need some disadvantages so I can buy skills.

OK, I'll take Odious Personal Habit. Yes, this will cancel my reputation bonus, but it is what it is. My character has a habit of getting too close to people, and it's off-putting.

I'll take Bad Sight (remember those thick glasses); that's another 10 points.

Hell, just to make my life hard, I'll take Hemophilia for 30 points. He likes to talk about how bleeding endlessly from tiny cuts first interested him in vampires. I'll take Combat Paralysis, because it's appropriate (did you notice I wrote rules for this into Armory Reloaded?). And I think that'll do. I have 58 points now.

Step Six: Quirks. Love these. Just weird little character bits, but you get a point each for them, up to five. Let's see. I'll take these five quirks:

- Calls attractive women "milady."
- Carries a pocket mirror and checks people he suspects of being vampires (with a laugh and a nudge; he doesn't really think that would work)
- Only wears black slacks, because they "go with anything"
- Dislikes guns and loud noises
- Spells using English spellings ("colour" and so on)

Step Seven: Skills. Right, here's the real meat-and-butter. I can only use points equal to twice my age, but I picture this guy as being at least 35, so that's not an issue. I get double the skill points on mental skills. The skills I want:

Writing 15 (1)
Breath Control 13 (1)
Fencing 10 (4)
Language (French) 15 (1)
Language (Spanish) 15 (1)
Computer Operation 16 (1)
Forensics 14 (1)
History 15 (2)
Literature 15 (2)
Occultism 16 (2)
Psychology 14 (1)
Research 15 (2)
Theology 15 (2)
Carousing 13 (16)
Savoir-Faire 16 (1)
Driving (car) 10 (4)

Wow, that still means I have 21 points left. Hell, are there other skills I should take? My skill totals are pretty damned impressive for average difficulties. I'll bump Occultism up to 20, which eats a further 4 points, and I'll specialize in Vampires. That means I have an effective 25 when dealing with vampires, but a 19 (still impressive) when dealing with anything else. 17 points left. I'll take the Night Vision Advantage (10 points); I figure he's mostly nocturnal anyway.

And, some more Skills:

Photography 15 (1)
Crossbow 11 (2) (for keeping up appearances)
Stealth 10 (4)

Step Eight: Equipment and Encumbrance. This won't take long. As long as I'm not carrying more than 20lbs of stuff on me, which I'm not, I don't take an encumbrance penalty. I figure the most this guy carries is a palm pilot, maybe a laptop. I don't wear armor or carry a weapon, normally.

Step Nine: Completing Your Character. Almost there! Really, all I need is:

Name: The book says I ought to know this by now. I am abased. Well, I figure his real name is something average and dull. We'll say he was born Ethan Williams. However, he writes novels under the name E. Lewis Paver.

And that's it! Lewis is ready to get out there and find that the real creatures of the night are a lot more techologically sophisticated than he is. 

Character Creation: Hellas: Worlds of Sun & Stone

So anyway:

The Game: Hellas: Worlds of Sun and Stone
The publisher: Khepera Publishing
Degree of familiarity: None. I picked it up at Origins (I think, maybe it was GenCon) last year, but didn't get a chance to play it.
Books required: Just the core and a great deal of time, which today I have.

I think this character is actually for the 1st edition, but my PDF is this one

 
OK, this game uses lifepaths, in a big way. You're not just creating a character, you've got a whole history going on, because these characters are meant to mythic in scope. Hell, you're actually meant to play the character's dynasty, which in a long chronicle, would be fully awesome.

Only one minor niggle, and it's something Stew pointed out when he did his character for this game: Some of the races that you can play don't have families in the same way that humans (Hellenes) do, which renders the whole "lifepath" thing a little unwieldy. Now, I'm not going to let that stop me, of course.

As an aside, I find that when I make characters for systems that include extended chargen sections - either in the "20 questions" form of Legend of the Five Rings or Edge of Midnight, or the lifepath form a la Shattered Dreams, I enjoy the extra thought it makes me put into characters. This is especially true if I don't know the game as well. I put lots of thought into World of Darkness characters, but the setting is quite familiar to me, too. Then when I get around to making a character for, say, Shadowrun, it doesn't have the same breadth, not because the information isn't out there, but because I'm not as familiar with it and the chargen section doesn't ask me to delve in the same ways (not that I wouldn't like to play T'kor, if anyone were running Shadowrun, you know, well).

OK, digression over, back to space opera. The Hellas book is really fucking pretty, and I enjoyed reading it quite a bit. Fiction bits were short and sweet, and I feel, after reading it, that I "get it" enough to play it. As for the system, I have no idea, but I admit my eyes tend to glaze over when I read systems. I need to see them in play first.

Well, my first step here is determine a race. OK. There are some cool ideas here, but the one that kept jumping out at me was the Myrmidons. These guys are living colonies of tiny insects, formed into a human shape (ever see the old Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends episode where the villain was a dude made of bees called "Swarm?").

What I like about this race is that they worship Hellenic gods and try to emulate the Hellenes. That is, they try and act human...but they aren't. They mimic human family structure, even pretending to reproduce the same way humans do (go ahead, picture two human-shaped clouds of insects doing it, I dare you), all in this kind of twisted hero-worship thing they've got going. That's creepy, and I love it. I could play that to the bone.

Myrmidons usually latch onto a Hellene to mimic or worship, which I would totally do with another Hellene character. Since Stew didn't make one, I'll just leave it at that. I will, however, note the stuff I get from being a bug-man.

My racial attributes:

Intelligence +0
Will +0
Perception +0
Charisma +0
Strength +0
Dexterity +3
Constitution +2
Speed +0
Combat Rating +0
Dynamism -3

Hit Points: 20

And then I get some Skills, which I note on the character sheet.

These might change as the process continues. I also get some special powers. I heal quickly, because "healing" means "making more bugs." I can shapeshift, I can add extra limbs (sweet!). And - holy crap, this is fun - I can ooze through cracks in an opponent's armor and fucking sting them to death. Enough Myrmidons can cluster together to make, say, a bridge or a spaceship. I can split off a little chunk of myself to go make me a smammich. And, of course, I can see in 360 degrees.

Holy crap, these guys are cool. OK, what's next!?

I roll on Life Path to determine my "childhood" (larva-hood?) adventures. Remember that Myrmidons don't really have childhoods, but it would be interesting if they put restrictions on how big they go during their early years, just to emulate childhood. Better go grab some entropy.

Let's see. I was born in Spring, specifically in Thargelion. I don't see anything about what that means in the section and the index is no help, dangit. Hm. Also, "birth" is a misnomer. I assume that Myrmidon breeding happens when a new queen is hatched, which technically doesn't require two Myrmidon colonies at all. But, if they want to emulate Hellenes, it should - the "mother" provides the queen egg and the "father" provides the male fertilization, so there we go.

Moving on, where was I "born"? The planet Aegina, the Myrmidon homeworld. Makes sense. Lemme look that up. Ooh, neat. The planet Aegina was devastated by a plague, one that pretty much killed every living thing there except the Myrmidons, which it elevated to sentience instead. Young Myrmidons pretty much leave as soon as they can. But some of my reasons for leaving might be covered in future rolls, so let's move on.

The next roll tells me I'm an orphan and I raised myself. Sounds good. My "parents" died in an accident on Aegina - crushed in a cave-in (bugs are hard to kill unless you get the queens). The other Myrmidons didn't know quite what to do, here; yes, I should be "raised" by someone else, but it's not like bugs aren't born with everything they need to be adults. My guy pretty much just grew faster than he normally would have been allowed to and went on with his life.

Next, parents' social station (pre-death, obviously). Nobles. Neato! So their death might have been assassination, or just a horrible accident. Hmm. I also get +5 Glory and the Royal Favor Talent.

Now, family status. Wow. We're destitute and powerless - I'm their only hope. Heavy burden for my shoulder-like-clusters-of-bugs.

How many siblings? One "twin." Ooh, that's interesting. When my folks created a new queen, they got two. That's gotta be uncommon. How does my twin feel about me? Competitive rival, but loves me. Maybe. I have an idea, here. My twin and I read up on some great Hellenic legend about feuding twins, and decided to emulate them. Problem is, the legends vary from place to place, and sometimes they end with one twin killing the other. Also, we argue about which twin is which.

Right, special gift: My folks left me a small fortress on a Theban asteroid. That's interesting. I figure there are actually two, one for me and one for my twin, orbiting near each other, almost exactly alike.

Divine Heritage: My great-grandmother on my mother's side had a divine parent (and was also a twin, how about). I get 3 more Glory. My Divine Mark is that I'm Very Wise. I get +1 Perception. A thousand eyes will do that.

Childhood Encounter: If I can tie this in to my parents' deaths, I will. Let's see. OK, I encountered "someone special." I met a Hero in the market when I was young, who gave me a small trinket and told me to keep it safe. Neato. I figure he's still got the small trinket in him, surrounded by the bugs. Or, fuck, how about this: The trinket is a lock, made of gold and brass. My guy has no idea where the key is, and he's never told anyone, not even his brother, about the lock. But his brother was in the market that day, too...

Now I choose a god. And I actually choose, I don't roll. I like the idea of this guy being about secrets, symbolized by a lock. I choose Aphrosia, the Lover (plays into the month of my birth, too). My twin, of course, is chosen of Athenia, whose domains are about prophecy and investigation (symbolized by a key, GET IT?).

Destiny: I choose Destiny (but not Fate, which is next). This is the heroic end to my Hero's story. Hmm. I think that his Destiny would involve reuniting lock and key, and therefore revealing some great secret or uncovering some kind of special wisdom. This will involve learning that my twin has the key, and convincing him to share it with me (yes, there's some very, er, Greek things going on with my twin, here, made slightly more palatable by the fact that we're two colonies of bugs). Joining Lock and Key, and discovering the Song of the Myrmidons - sounds good to me. What's the Song do? Dunno. That's for the GM to figure out, but I personally think these guys need their own racial identity, rather than aping the Hellenes. Maybe the song will help them find it.

Now, Fate: Roll a 5, roll a 5, roll a 5....4. Shit. "Killed by a foreign warrior." Well, actually, that could still be my brother, depending on the circumstances.

Profession. The Myrmidon-specific ones don't do anything for me. I think Ambassador speaks to me. It allows my guy to work at keeping secrets while appearing to be open and forthright, and puts me into a diplomatic spotlight which makes the "killed by a foreign warrior" thing more likely. Let's see. That gives me +1 Charisma and a bunch of Skills, which I note. As an amusing note, one of my skills is Seduction. Ew. Oh, I also make a Skill roll to see how much money I start with. OK. Since no Degree of Difficulty is listed, I assume it's unmodified. I roll a 3, to which I add my CHA bonus (+1) and my Profession Skill (+4) and get 8, which is a partial success, so I start with my full 2000 drachma.

Now, Callings. This is fun! I can take up to 5 Calling Life Paths, but each one ages me. That's OK; it's not like Myrmidons are going to be wrinkly (and besides my Goddess ensures I always look hot, which weirds me out some). Oh, side note: The book acknowledges that this creates characters that are not "balanced." Good on you, guys. Game balance is for video games and D&D.

So, where do we start? The Callings open to me are Legionnaire of Delphoi, Noble, Priest, Sailor and Scholar. So let's think. I figure that after the parent-crushing incident, my guy decided to get the hell off of Aegina for a while, so "Sailor" is a good start. I shall roll on the Sailor Life Path and see what happens. OK, first, how much did this age me? 4 years. OK. So what happened to me as a Sailor? A special event! Yay! Oh, well. I've "seen many things and experienced different cultures." I get a +1 in languages. I'll use that to bump my Hellene language up to Fluent. That's totally in-character, though it's no "fight a giant space-squid," is it? Maybe next time.

So after spending four years as a Sailor (during which I assume I wasn't doing grunt work - I was probably on an exploratory or diplomatic vessel), let's assume he moved up in the world and spent some time as a Noble. Roll for age: 3 years (7 total). Roll for event: Enemy! My enemy is an Atlantean. Ugh. What's an Atlantean? Jesus. That's fun. OK, he's trying to kill me because I'm fated to kill him, and he's working with my other enemies to kill me.

OK, let's put this in context. My guy knows nothing about the Atlantean. All he knows is that during his travels as a Noble (I figure the shift from Sailor to Noble happened once he learned about his fortress and figured out that "Mom" and "Dad" had some clout, even among Hellenes) he met a dark man during a diplomatic conference. That mean, an oracle, reported back to his Atlantean master that he had foreseen this young Myrmidon unlock the Song of the Myrmidon, the Music of the Endless Swarm...and that Swarm would be coming for him (the Atlantean) one day. This Atlantean, not wishing to have that happen, started digging in my guy's life, and found...his twin. Now he's working to nudge my twin into killing me, hopefully destroying the lock in the process. But the Atlantean doesn't know that my twin has the key, which would shut down my Destiny just as quickly.

Next Path: How about another stint as a Noble? The roll: 3 years. Special event! I cowed an angry mob in the markets using presence and noble stature. Sweet. My twin, in an ongoing effort to fuck with me, drove people into a frenzy, telling them that there was an Atlantean spy around, a Myrmidon noble (ironically, he was right, but it was him). My character spread himself out, making himself look huge but somehow still beautiful (arrrrgh) and told the people to go back to their business - I'm no spy, I'm the Lord and Master of the Fortress on That There Asteroid. I get +1 Command for my trouble.

Fourth Path: I don't know, Noble is still looking good. The roll: 5 years. Event: Relationship. This could get very weird. Oh, damn, it didn't. I befriend a contact on a random world, maybe a player character. I roll for a random world and get Tegea. Tegea is a water planet, where the algae blooms across the whole world, turning it red. Neat. I think my contact there is an algae baron, someone who's responsible for farming it and shipping it off-world. Someone I could call on for a favor (using my Royal Favor Talent) if need be. How close are we? We're friendly, but not blood brothers or anything. I think he's not Hellene, or I'd be friendlier to him. I think he's a Gorgeon, because the notion of talking with a great big fat snake-dude on an algae farm is awesome. His name is Nicias.

Last Path: Not Noble. Um. Fuck it, how about Legionnaire of Delphoi? In meeting and befriending Nicias, my guy learned about the people out there who depend on the Legion to do things as mundane as protect food ships from pirates or just general mishaps. He'd already spent his time working as a diplomat; now maybe it was time to do more. Years: 4 years, and that's because I rolled a 20 (you add 3 for this Path). The event: Enemy again. Ergh. It comes up as "a Parent," which is inconvenient because supposedly my folks are dead. Well, let's continue. Supposedly I foiled this enemy's insidious plot and were hailed a Hero. Sure, OK.

My "mother," known as Candis, didn't die in the cave-in. In fact, she planned it. The idea was to kill my "father" (Dunixi) and take over the family. But the cave-in was a little too successful, and Candis was trapped for a little longer than she wanted to be. In the interim, my character (and his twin), rather than sticking to the "pretend to be children" plan that was common for Myrmidons, grew up and left the planet. Mom wasn't there to rein us in, and with us "adults" but leaving the world, the family line fell to ruin. Mom also couldn't claim her true identity without setting off some alarm bells, so she retreated to the shadows, catching up with my character, what, 15 years later when he joined the Legion. She has, however, fallen in with both his twin and his secretive Atlantean enemy, and is working to kill him and collect his secret trinket, the Lock (Candis, like the Atlantean, doesn't know about the key).

That's Callings done, then. I should do Disadvantages at some point. Interestingly, they aren't listed in the character creation steps. I get five levels of Disadvantages, and I have to have three. Well, I think all of mine are going to be Relationships. First, my twin, obviously. His name is Alcides. I'll put that at level 3 - he's going to be the most important Disadvantage I have. I'll put the Atlantean and Candis as my other two, both at level 1. They're both using Alcides to get at me, but they'll work on their own sometimes, too.

Freebie points! I get 30. Well, since most of my Skills rely on Charisma, I'll spend 10 points and bump it up to +0. I suppose I should buy some combat skill, since I was a Legionnaire. I'll take Brawling. Costs one for one, so I'll buy up to +5. Hell, I'll buy a +1 in Combat Rating, too. I'll drop 5 points on the Well-Traveled Talent. That leaves me with 5 points left, unless I want to drop any of my attributes and get more points. Hate to say it, but Cultural Studies makes some sense. I put 4 points into Hellene and one point in Gorgeon, to reflect my time with Nicias. Guess that'll do it. Without knowing how the system works in play, I have no idea if I suck or not, which makes me nervous. Obviously this is a social, not a combat, character. But I'm a Hero, so you figure the combat would come later.

I start with Hero Points equal to 5 + (Charisma x 2), which is 11 for me. I start with no Fate Points, which is good. I've got +8 Glory right now, and that doesn't change until I go do more stuff.

Heroic Ambitions: I can take up to three of these, and they have to be Heroic, dammit. I don't want them to relate to my Destiny, at least not yet. Let's see.

Well, first, I figure that fortress should figure in somehow. My character wants to host a grand gathering of diplomats at his asteroid fortress (which I think we'll call "the Fire Hive", since it needs a name). Yes, this kind of violates the checklist of ambitions, but I'll also add that I want the gathering to be worthy of a song or story that gets repeated throughout Hellenic space, and I think that counts.

Second, I want to establish fair and safe trading between Nicias and some of the poorer, outlying worlds. Nicias is a buddy, but he's a shrewd trader, he's greedy and he doesn't give a shit about anyone outside his own world. My character wants to see people on other worlds get fed, and some worlds don't support life like they should (especially mining colonies and the like). This'll give him a chance to flex his muscles as a diplomat.

Finally, I want to lead an assault on my brother's fortress (which we'll call the Ice Hive). The two Hives have their names because of the colors of rock they're made of; his is blue and white, mine is red and yellow and black. I don't want to take the Ice Hive, or even destroy it. I just want to invade it, steal some stuff, and show my brother that I can fight, too (I think he's a better warrior than me). Kind of counting coup, in a way.

Now I need an epithet. The book suggests summarizing my character's life and letting the other players suggest an epithet, but clearly that's not an option. So: My character is chosen of Aphrosia, which means he's pretty and all. He's known for being wise, and a shrewd diplomat. But what is he really known for, something that's truly Heroic in scope? We'll say his epithet is "gentle-voiced;" he can soothe people no matter how angry or zealous they are. His name, by the way, is Iphicles, which was Heracles' twin brother. Iphicles, in Greek myth, grew up mortal, but around here, that ain't the case - Iphicles is a Hero in his own right.

Now, age. I start at age 6 (adult for a Myrmidon), and I add 19 years for my Life Paths, meaning I'm 25 now. Still in the "adult" range. Myrmidons don't live all that long, as it happens; age 50 is considered "venerable."

And remarkably, that's it! 

Character Creation: Terra Primate

Ook, ook. 

The Game: Terra Primate
The publisher: Eden Studios.
Degree of familiarity: None directly. I've read the bits of the book that aren't exactly the same as other Unisystem books.
Books required: Just the core book.

 

Well, as with All Flesh Must Be Eaten, the first thing I need to do is decide which "Apeworld" I want to use. 'Scuse me while I slide over to random.org for a moment.

OK, so I get the first one: Dominant Species. Hold on while I read it over. Got it; this is basically the classic Planet of the Apes, and the human characters are assumed to be visitors, whether spacemen, dimensional travelers or whatever. The option is there to play human-sympathizer apes or native humans, but I have an idea that I think will work.

The Apeworld says that the apes are afraid of water. I picture my character as being a sailor, maybe idle rich...but nah, people like that crack under pressure. This guy was a rebel billionaire type of guy, someone who made his own millions on the sweat of his brow. Owned a shipping company, I think. And then when his wife died, he decided he'd just sail around the world forever. So he's got his one-man boat, big enough to live on but not so big as he'd require a crew, and started sailing.

And then a couple of years later, he hit a squall in the Triangle. It blew him off course, and when it cleared, he'd run aground someplace he didn't recognize. He'd got no gas and the boat is pretty wrecked up anyway, so he went inland to find help. He found...apes.

These apes enslave humans, they're brutal and vicious, and they think nothing of burning a human village down if the humans don't capitulate. But they've got one real fear - water. They can't swim, they drown easy and they sure as hell don't know anything about boats. And that means my character can, with help, build devices to navigate the rivers and get the drop on the hairy bastards. Thing is, the apes know that now, and they want him dead.

My first step is to choose Character Type. In this game, I can be Pre-Heroic, Heroic or Powered (psychic, basically). I think that my idea works best as a Hero, so I'll go Heroic.

Next up: Attributes. I get 20 points. It's Unisystem, so we've got Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, Perception, and Willpower. Well, this guy's pretty tough and determined. Average is about 2, so if I divvy up evenly I get 3 in each with 2 left over. OK. I'll make him exceptional (4 points) in Constitution and Willpower.

Skipping derived traits for now, sigh.

Qualities and Drawbacks. I get 15 points in Qualities and I can take up to 10 in Drawbacks. Well, right off I need the Minority Drawback at -3 because I'm in a world where humans are enslaved. I'll also take a 4-point Adversary - that'd be the ape military of the nearby city-state, who'd like me dead before I start teaching the concept of "Navy" to the humans. And I'll take Reckless; I figure this guy's been rich for so long he's not used to having to temper what he does or says.

Qualities, though. I'll take Charisma +5 - this guy's a born leader and always has been. He's gruff, but he's also sharp and likeable. I'll take Fast Reaction time; good for a sailor. Likewise, I'll take Nerves of Steel; he doesn't crack easy. I'll take 3 points of Good Luck. Finally, Situational Awareness. Good to notice the apes in the trees before they strike.

OK, that means I have 44 points to spend on Skills (35 normally + 9 more for Drawbacks). Here's what I come up with:

Brawling 2
Bureaucracy 2
Climbing 2
Craft (Carpentry) 3
Craft (Boat-Making) 3
Dodge 2
Engineer (Construction) 3
First Aid 1
Guns (Rifle) 2
Humanities (Law) 1
Humanities (Economics) 2
Intimidation 2
Mechanic 3
Notice 3
Pilot (Sailboat) 4
Pilot (Motorboat) 4
Running 2
Swimming 3

I don't have Powers, since I'm not...Powered, I just figure my derived traits. I have 38 Life Points, 38 Endurance Points, Speed 14 and 20 Essence (not that Essence means much to my non-Powered ass).

I picture my character in his early 40s. Crew-cut, brown hair, sharp blue eyes, Navy tats on his shoulders and in good shape for his age. Still wears his wedding ring after all these years (the cancer took his wife some years back). Missing his left front tooth from the boat crash that brought him here. His name is Earl Donald. His grandfather changed the family name from O'Donnell, back when the Irish didn't get a fair shake, and Earl kind of regrets not changing it back. As it happens, the apes don't care what his name is, they just want him dead. And all Earl wanted initially was to get home again, but these natives (and the other PCs, if there were any) are growing on him. Even if he could leave, he doesn't think he should.  

Character Creation: 50 Fathoms

Well, my initial idea for this evening's fun hit a snag - I'm out of space on my gaming bookshelves, so I need to buy another one before I can finish cleaning my office. Don't suppose anyone wants an assload of Jyhad cards? Happy to trade them for an RPG.

Anyway, I decided to make a character. Initially I was thinking Terra Primate, but I just read 50 Fathoms and figure I ought to do this one before the knowledge fades from my brain.

The Game: 50 Fathoms
The publisher: Pinnacle Entertainment Group
Degree of familiarity: None with this game specifically, though I've run Savage Worlds in the form of Necessary Evil.
Books required: The Savage Worlds book and the 50 Fathoms book.

 
I admit, I wasn't sold on this initially. I got this book in a trade, having flipped through it at a con or something and thought, "eh." I mean, it looks like a generic fantasy world, only with more water. What do I want fantasy for? I've got Desolation.

Really, though, the backstory is kind of interesting. Three witches, having been sentenced to death by the king, rise up all bloated and drowned and make it rain enough to drown the world in 50 fathoms of water (which may have been where the game title came from, I'm not sure). This also created a vortex to our world, so pirates and other shippy people have been lured in by some weird "Maiden" in the mist.

The world is detailed enough that it wouldn't be at all hard to run a game. I like that humans are interlopers, but that we've already set up towns and started trying to run things (including introduced our quaint notions of "God" to the heathen natives; it hasn't taken). There are also some cool races. You can play a hyper-intelligent crab-person, or a big fat walrus-person, or a dolphin-person, if you think the dolphin is your "spirit animal" or some such BS.

I do not have a spirit animal, and if I did, it'd be a bunny anyway, so I won't be playing a doreen (the dolphin-folks).

Step One: Race. Well, heck. This is not a light decision. If I want to play a magic-user ("elementalist", in this game) I have to be either human, scurillian (crab-people), kraken (FUCKING MIND FLAY- er, octopus-faced people) or masaquani (the human-like natives of Caribdus).

You know, I kind of like the notion of a super. In 50 Fathoms parlance, a "super" is someone who vouches for the legality of a ship's cargo, but the ship's code and number are tattooed on the super's arm. They're very well-paid. First time I read them, I thought maybe that'd be a fun character. I think I'll do that, but I still need a race.

I choose atani. They're these winged, bat-like elf-like people. The picture in the book is of this lithe, graceful-looking woman atani, but of course I'm going to play a dude. I think my atani left his home for some reason - probably his family died during the flood and subsequent war, and being around his own people is painful for him. He's OK with the open ocean - yeah, there's no trees, but he can hang in the crow's nest and look out over clear, blue water stretching forever. It's kind of peaceful. He also has the names and numbers of cargos past on his wings, not his arms, making for this kind of of weird patchwork of numbers and letters all over them, which I think would look awesome.

Step Two: Traits. I start with a d6 in Agility because I'm an atani. Strength, however, is expensive to raise (again, because I'm an atani and they have hollow bones). Since I think that this guy is going to spend a lot of time flying around, scouting, observing and occasionally firing a gun or sling or something at enemies, I'll keep my points in Agility and Smarts and Spirit. I boost Agility to a d10, Smarts to a d8 and Spirit to a d6. That leaves Vigor and Strength at a d4, but I can live with that.

OK, now Skills:

Flying d10 (it's free to d6, and I boost it to d10)
Knowledge (Masaquani Language) d6 (also free)
Boating d4
Climb d4
Knowledge (Shipping Laws) d6
Notice d6
Persuasion d6
Shooting d6
Streetwise d4
Taunt d6

Fun fact: You can incapacitate mooks with a Taunt.

I should do derived traits now, according to the book, but that's dumb.

Step Three: Special Abilities. Edges and Hindrances. I mark down my racial Edges (I can Glide and I'm Agile), and my racial Hindrance (I's a Weak puppy). As usual, I shall take the allowed two minor and one major Hindrances, which requires me to grab my copy of Savage Worlds.

OK, I'll take Cautious. My guy thinks of himself as the last of his line, and that makes him circumspect. Likewise, I'll take Pacifist. He'll fight if there's no choice, but he'd rather fly to high ground.

Hmm. For my Major Hindrance, let's give this guy some color. I'll take Enemy. He's got a ship of once-legitimate-sailors-now-pirates who can't go home again, largely because of my character. He was their super, and during the vessel he freaked. He saw the course that the captain had plotted, and saw that it was going to take them too close to the Kehana Flumes. Not wishing to be eaten by psychotic fish-monsters, he jumped ship, gliding away during the night and hitching a ride with another vessel. The ship can through the flumes fine, but arrived at their destination without a super...which meant the whole shipment was impounded and the crew arrested as pirates. This was some years back, when my guy was still pretty green, and he hasn't repeated this cowardice, but there's still a pissed-off crew of pirates who'd love to shoot his ass.

Well, now I've got 4 points to play with. I'd like an Edge, I think. I'll take Rich - supers are well-paid. For my last two points, I'll buy Stealth at d6.

I start with my clothes and 500 pieces of eight, only I get that times three for being Rich. With 1500 silver pieces, I buy two flintlock pistols (yes, I'm a pacifist, but guns improve my bargaining position) and a map of Caribdus. Figuring out my derived traits, I have +0 Charisma, 6'' Pace, 2 Parry (because I have no Fighting, which means I'd better stay the hell out of close combat) and 4 Vigor.

The book says atani have graceful-sounding names. One of my favorite lines from a Shakespeare play is from Twelfth Night: "This is Illyria, lady." Very lyrical. My character's name is Aes Lyrria (yes, it's pronounced much like "ace," but with a more obvious dipthong; "ay-is"). And I think that puts me all done.